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ALERT! LATEST SIGNPOSTING SEEN AT CASEY FIELDS "WARM RIDE WARRRM RIDE BABY THATS THE WAY YOU ARE" Graham Bonnet Why did I bring this "Classic"song up ?? Because training today was as smooth and as sublime as the song! This didn't look like a preseason knockup more a purring machine that has just been fitted with a turbo charger Weather great just perfect for training, bit of breeze but nothing out of the ordinary, Ground is in fantastic condition as well Players missing Dogga, didnt see Jake lever either and I did see Jayden Hunt doing some exercises away from main group SKILLS, DRILLS AND MANOEVERS. WARM UPS Consisted of short precise ball movement drills, around close contests and choosing correct options, small group work followed before a surprising match simulation game/drill where some very interesting simulations occured key points were as follows 1 Portable goal posts were moved 20 meters in from permanent ones 2 The game was played in a rectangle type field with narrowed boundaries 3 All starts were from the Casey Dressing rooms side with a boundary throw in The skills, touch, finese, fitness and audible crunching tackles and some at times dazzling ball movement was as evident as the last minute and a half of the 3rd quarter of the grand final. To me it looks like every single player has arrived back lean , hungry and fit. There was no sign of lethargy or any semblence of Premiership hangover that I could see. The other thing that struck me was the obvious enjoyment that comes with the mateship element which build a culture of excellence. PLAYER WATCH As usual Clarry, Salem, Viney, Max Langdon and BOWEY that set the standard but others who were prominent included a clearly fit Stephen May, Adam Tomlinson, Tom Mc Donald and a very good Joel Smith. Majak Daw provided plenty of excitment and a work out for Max in the ruck and others to shown form were ANB, Trac and BB Weeds did a few things but got pushed under the ball a few times. Tom Sparrow also showed something OTHER ASPECTS After Match simulations players were put threw some gruelling run throughs and then finally other small drills in groups designed for quick evasions, and picking right option in pressure situations. If this is a sign of what is to come them 2022 should yield as much success and excitment as 2021 Overheard at nearby shops at Santa Stall, Santa says to little tike in Melbourne Jumper "What do you want for Christmas?? Little tike "Another Melbourne Flag next year" !😁 Final thoughts, After seeing Jake Bowey lay a tackle on Kossie doing his acrobatic routine which befuddles everyone. How good is this Kid!?

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1038702?fbclid=IwAR2gzo8vYI-YYwDRQGHRgd4H4r3SrlI0-qCOSoNcHFxa0EnpxUWjbrtFXos 2.1 mill operating profit and should get better next year with increased membership , sponsorship and merchandise sales( the last 6 weeks of demon shop sales are not included in the figures)

Special Day. 5 All Australians and a Premiership between us now.

Max and Jack painting is now print ready…..attached is the 1 MB (OG scan is 320 x this) web friendly final pic. Click on the pic, then again, and you’ll get the largest format at 1MB. Sizes for purchase are - *Small (60cm x 40cm) *Large (83cm x 62cm) *Original (122cm x 81.3cm) Each is available on 2 grades of paper - 230gsm and 320gsm (Archival Museum Art Grade), which will be reflected in the pricing. I’ll add price and other details later today, and personal message all who want a print…

Most of the GF prizemoney goes to the players: "There was a $4.7m increase in player payments, including $0.5m relating to the players share of AFL prizemoney as a result of winning the Premiership." Now for the stuff to keep an eye on: $2.4M in prepayments for merchandise and memberships paid for before 31 October. That alone wipes out the profit. $34M for sale of Leighoak and Bentleigh club. $11M went to paying debt. That is why we are "debt free"...we sold assets. What is yet to be explained is how a Future Fund will generate the $2M of profit in the current environment, that these venues did for us, on a capital base of only $23M. i.e. a 10% return each and every year!

Whenever I see another Demon supporter, I cannot help myself ... I say "how about those Dees?" or "Go Dees". It invariably leads to a pleasant conversation whereby happy memories are revisited. Have never had a neutral (or worse) response. What a great tribe we are part of !! Tonight it was at the Terminus Hotel in Clifton Hill. I met 2 lovely ladies, one of whom said she was a long time lurker on this site, but not a poster. She (Leah, who was wearing a premiership t shirt) said if I posted on this site tonight, she would post a "like". Let's see if she's true to her word.

FINALLY!!! Every year I stick the H/S fixture on my pantry door. And every year I have to stick a Melbourne pic over the pic of the reigning premiers. NOT THIS YEAR!

Think back 10 years ago and this bring a tear to your eye. We were on our knees financially. It is a great to be doing well especially considering the Covid impact, we should not have to compromise anything. Assuming we continue to perform well the next few years, we will set a new bar for average crowd sizes, prime time games and membership numbers.

Yep I think Jaguar would be well pleased with our new flag and extra exposure. It may well fuel the image of well heeled and prosperous supporters but is that really so bad. Is it a crime to have nice cars, be skilled in outdoor winter sports and have a more sophisticated cheese palette? No mergers or relocotions ever for this financially responsible club.

This Clayton Oliver podcast popped into my feed. He is in relaxed form and gives some insights into his early career and from the Grand Final. Credit to Dylan Buckley (I've never listened to his podcast before) he is a good interviewer.

Great result and helps set the club up (hopefully) for a sustained period of success Well done to all concerned

Sounds like a '70s "road buddies" movie. Demonland and the Skipper. An overworked underpaid football fan forum operator finds himself accused of theft of a sports trophy shaped like a giant egg cup. The only way to clear his name is to find it and take it across country to a Las Vegas silverware convention. But there's a catch. Quirky giant "The Skipper" also needs to find the cup to to clear his name of a casino gambling debt. It's laugh-a-minute hijinks as these two oddballs try to find the cup and somehow get it to Vegas before the Mob or the cops find them.

Up here in sunny Queensland where not that many follow AFL, let alone the mighty Demons, one of my 6 yo son's PE teachers wears a MFC cap on pretty much a daily basis and has been since at least the start of this season. So since the start of this year, pretty much every time my son comes across this teacher in the school yard, he gets a big "GO DEMONS!!" from my son. Whitenessed this exchange first hand, when I was dropping off my son to class the other day ... it's a beutiful thing. Obviously, to be wearing a MFC cap on a daily basis, his PE teacher is a bit of a die hard Demons man. Got talking to this teacher a while back sometime mid/late(ish) in the season (heck of a nics bloke) and apparently one of his grandpa's played for the mighty MFC back in the day as well. He got a big "GO DEMONS!!" from me too, when I saw him in the week or so following our awsome premiership wining GF. As Binngers alluded to, it's great to be a part of this tribe right at the moment. All those years of pain have only deepened the bond and euphoria, we now share with our fellow Demons faithful.

Normally I read what has been written in a thread before I post. Today I haven't bothered Every other team should look at the fixture and panic if they play Melbourne twice.even worse for them if it's in WA or Geelong

First time in my 41yo life I've ever looked at a fixture and not given two hoots who we play twice.

To have not only a successful club on field, but a financially, culturally and structurally stable one off the field, is something I don't think any of us could have dreamt of less than a decade ago. What a time to be alive!

That is a result that we could only have dreamed of nine years ago and in spite of the heavy impact of Covid. This puts us back up with the Big Clubs, just shows what can be done when surrounded by hard working brilliant people.💕❤️💙

On field success leads to off field financial success. Very difficult to be financially secure if not playing and winning finals. well done all. Great outcome with hopefully more to follow over the next few years

It’s a magic eye picture. If you blur your eyes you see Max holding the 2022 cup!

Great take on this issue Wrecker. Very relaxed. To the other 17 clubs. - Be scared - be very scared. The Dees now have fortresses everywhere.

As some of you will know, I have a side-hustle as an artist/painter. I’ve decided the first of a likely Dees triptych will be a painting of this from the Prelim. Captain and Vice-captain, legacy (Todd) and reinvention (Maxy). Brotherhood, team commitment (small bloke launching big bloke), layers of meaning everywhere! Will be in a fully realist style (with artistic licence on background, removal of sponsor labelling, etc,) acrylic on canvas, and large (likely ~ 48 inches high). If I get enough expressions of interest on here, I’ll have prints made and available for purchase. Let me know…

This is pretty cool. Video courtesy of HSV7.

Maybe this post should be in Post Game - Round 1 thread. I am finding it interesting to look back of replays of the games this season through a prism of winning the Grand Final and the quality of play that we achieved in the second half of that game. Here are some of my observations on the Round 1 Freo game. - Playing in the game were Tomlinson, Hunt, Jones, Jetta and Jordon who were all missing from the GF team. - Kossie was deployed at the opening center bounce. - our defence started the season the way they meant to play for the whole of the season... conceded no goals in the first quarter. in the first quarter all of Lever, May, Tomlinson and Rivers all took contested intercept marks. trademark of the defence right there. - Goodwin coaching from the bench was something that he did all of the season. looked to have an immediate connection with the players. Will be interesting to see if other coaches follow his direction on this. - Brayshaw on a wing. it was interesting to see how this developed over the season. in this Round 1 game, he was there but not a fully fledged member of the Wingers Club. it was good that during the season this was persisted with as he has developed into this position well and excelled in the final series. - Sparrow looked at home in the team and provided good links into the forwards with some excellent delivery. he built on this during the season. - ANB ran all day and continued to do so all season. - I saw some glimpses of the way we developed during the season with the overlap running, both through the center and on Langdon's wing with players like Hunt, Salem, Rivers and Jackson running in waves. I aim to watch replays of all the games last season during the off season and might add some observations as I do.

Good day. signed Jumper turned up Medal turned up.

Interesting to see that there was a decrease in the soft salary cap of around $3M which also contributed to the profit. Definitely a bit of smoke and mirrors. Next year is when we need to hit our straps.

Not having a go at you... Just picking up on something that I hope is a little amusing: Yeah, we were surrounded by hard wokring and brilliant people. Then, eventually, we opened the doors and let some of them in.

Thank you to my sister for this birthday present.

Big footy Thread linking to all club reports for 2021 if you like comparisons - We aren't there yet as the accounts haven't been released... https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/2021-financials-thread.1286821/ Can look back at the leaner years as well for context about how things have changed!

Correctly is no mean FEAT Jontee or am I missing another point?

If the year wasn't impacted by covid the club's estimates point to a $6.1m profit. That is outstanding! Hopefully next season is covid free and we can really start capitalising on our success.

How many clubs thought they got the easy draw last year when they got us twice... 2022 is a new year.

Thanks @BDA - top interview. Interesting Billy Stretch's professionalism being such an influence on Clarry and more reciently Goody, with his 3 big rocks. Don't here Clarry speak at length so often. So many other great insights, but one of the others that really stuck out to me was the connection between Clarry and Gawn on the field, with Clarry pretty much instinctively knows where Max is going to put it off his ruckwork. Sort of reminds me of the way good onballlers I played with just knew where it was going, in a way I never seemed to be able to. The really interesting one was regarding Gawny bringing all the midfielders in to turn things around in that third quarter. Gawny seems like such a great leader that his players really respect.

+1 for another gus and gawny, as much fun as the post match was, i really have been keen to see a full episode.

Lots of hand wringing on here. It’s a fixture so it will never be even. Raining night games for the sponsors which is great and I love the rolling fixture - keeps us always a chance to get good slots. I will try to get down a few times. Lets get into it

I saw photos of a friend with the cup on social media this week. I wasn't able to get one :( She's has gotten on board the dees in a big way this year... but I still remember only a few years ago when she said she wasn't interested in attending the matches etc... when the team wasn't doing so well and I went along with other mates thinking she didn't actually follow football at all. On the one hand I don't care - the more ppl that jump on board the better as that will help drive membership, primetime spots, sponsors, more kids following the dees, long term sustainability etc etc .... but at the same time, when its someone I know well, it grates on me a little bit. (I feel like I'm that guy that says they liked X band before they were popular) I imagine I'm not the only to experience this mixed emotion.

Hard to see where we lose a game

I’m everyone’s “I know a Melbourne supporter” in my area. There’s not too many of us in this neck of the woods. But since our prelim win I’ve discovered two separate neighbours as diehard as me. And, of course, they’re both really nice blokes. 🙂❤️💙

No, I'm Leah, and so is my wife.

In 2006 I ran into a guy in the streets if London and we chatted for minutes whilst our partners stood there waiting for us to shut up and walk away.

2019. They have to wear their all-red jumper against us. It's rare: 2022 will be only our third home game against Essendon since the Troy Broadbridge memorial game in Round 1, 2005. That's right, in 17 seasons we'll have had three home games against Essendon. Some other stats/quirks: We haven't played Essendon twice in a season since 2005 We haven't played West Coast in Melbourne since 2014. 2022 will make it 7 consecutive seasons of us playing them in Perth (in 2015 we played them in Darwin) We're playing Geelong in Geelong for the 11th time in the last 14 seasons. The three we avoided were 2014, 2017 and 2020. 2017 we were still away to them, but the game was at Marvel during GMHBA renovations. 2020 we were drawn to play them away but then COVID meant the fixture was revamped. 2022 is our first away game against Fremantle since 2015, meaning it's the first time we'll play them at Optus Stadium (despite us having already played 7 games there) 2022 will be the 8th time in the last 10 seasons we've played Adelaide in Adelaide. Over the same period we've played them at the MCG twice. 2022 is our first away game to North at Marvel since 2014, ending a run of four consecutive away games drawn in Hobart I had thought our stretch of five games in a row away from the MCG might have been a record, but we had that same stretch in 2013, when we had "home" games against Brisbane on the Gold Coast and North Melbourne at Marvel (what the [censored] happened with that season?!) Our Round 11 home game vs Fremantle will make it 10 of our last 11 games against them have been our home games.

Also very handy for those of us in a different time zone. Only one 4 .a.m. start that I can see. (Though I accept, I'm not really a target market here, so I would have taken whatever came.)

Anywhere Anytime Even 44 points down in the third

Given we were locked in to away games against Richmond and the Pies it's a great commercial draw. - First game of the season, that's huge. - 4 or 5 of the first 6 on free to air prime time - Essendon and Hawthorn as well as the grand final rematch in 3 of our first 4 home games = 3 big money spinners, all should go clear of 50k. - Coll and Carl for reliable big crowds at the back end of the season - Only 2 low drawing home games for the entire year in GWS and Freo, and the Giants game is locked in round 5 on a Sat night. Our sponsors get more exposure than they ever would've and that's without the end of the season tv fixture which we will figure in prominently if we are top 4. Our crowds - we can just about lock in 9 of 10 MCG home crowds over 30k I reckon if the GWS turn out is good. And there's got to be a strong chance we can go 6 of 10 over 40k given they are all against Vic teams and some big drawing ones at that. Most years our MCG crowds probably produce very little revenue apart from the blockbusters. This year we've got a chance to bank really good cheques in almost all games and then know we've got the 2 big blockbusters to come in 2023.

Anyone. Anywhere. Any time. We are the champions.

Mirror mirror on the wall. Who is the greatest of them all.

Yes and still felt really strong and been getting through all his weight sessions. I'm not going to drink the bath water but gee, wow , oh boy, I like the sound/feel of everything at the moment!

I’m “Leah”….

Finished. I’ll post some notes later. Be aware that this photo is taken on my iPad, then compressed to fit file for this site. Scanning for prints will be at ‘museum art grade’ resolution and colour saturation/correction. You get the idea though….